Market research firm Gartner has a report and some predictions on the growth of the hybrid PC segment (more commonly known as convertible or detachable PCs). The firm expects that hybrids will make up 12% of the overall mobile PC market in 2015, with sales of of 21.5 million units.
If the report is correct, that number represents a 70% increase over convertibles’ slice of the pie in 2014, a year in which 12.6 million units were sold. Gartner further separates predicted sales into two categories: one for "ultramobile tablets," two-in-ones like Microsoft’s Surface 3, for which the firm expects sales of eight million units, while sales of convertibles like Asus’ Transformer Book T300 Chi are expected to be around 13.5 million units.
Gartner calls the hybrid segment the fastest-growing in the PC market, and it expects that growth to continue at least through 2019, with predicted sales of 58 million units four years from now. The report suggests that most of these gains will from the consumer market, as a good part of the corporate world is tied to legacy apps and operating systems with limited touch support—namely Windows 7. That could change with the advent of Windows 10, though.
For now, the traditional clamshell format we know and love is still king, with 87% of all notebooks sold this year expected to use that form factor. Come 2019, they’ll probably make up the majority of the market, too: the firm expects that 74% of mobile PCs sold will still be plain old notebooks.